It was actually a lot worse of a day than the opening photo would lead you to believe. There was a pretty substantial wind coming from the west on this day and when we left home to visit the planetarium, we had already lost power at our house.
Both those times were in the past five years.
The first was to watch James Hood's Mesmerica a couple of years ago, and the second was this weekend when we went to watch "Let It Snow".
If you visit the site, you will actually see they have about four shows playing right now.
- Life Under the Arctic Sky
- Let It Snow
- Eclipse: The Sun Revealed
- James Hood's Beautifica
Clearly, since we had the kids, we were checking out the Let It Snow show as I mentioned before. We also had
As you can see from the photos, the building has an interesting shape to it. I think they were going for some combination of the capsules from the old style rockets, and a starbase on some distant planet. It's pretty cool though and I'm almost sorry that the pictures I took don't do it justice.
Surrounding the actual planetarium seating area they have mission flags and displays as you can see in the photo above. They also have a gift shop that sells all sorts of space related trinkets you would expect from a place like this. Given the association with the college, there is a large emphasis on education and many schools in the area take multiple field trips to the planetarium each year.
The tickets for this show were ridiculously cheap, even without the veterans discount that we got for my wife's dad. There aren't that many seats inside the planetarium, but I don't think too many people come here. I will be the first to admit I don't usually consider visiting here, but after looking at a couple of the shows they have going right now, I'd certainly be interested.
That life under the arctic sky sounds amazing!
We ended up being pretty far back in the line, so I wasn't able to get any photos of the interior of the planetarium proper. I would have liked to show you the seating. They are a bit date, but they kind of tilt back so you can look up at the ceiling to get a full view of the stars.
I apologize, I know the photos kind of look washed out here, but trust me, as soon as they bring the lights down, things really start to clear up. The projector is full 360 degree high definition. In fact, as soon as they close the doors to start the show, you are allowed to leave, but you are not allowed to re-enter. They claim it is for safety reasons given how dark it is inside.
They always start every show with a video of some comet that one of the probes flew by recently. They display it in a box to show you what it would look like if you were in a movie theater. Then they expand the view to completely surround you to show what they are capable of in the planetarium. It's pretty cool.
Let It Snow as a pretty good program. It didn't last more than an hour and my father in law was asleep after the first song. It was basically classic Christmas Carols played with a backdrop of various geometric patterns and shapes spinning all around you.
I get the feeling that's how a lot of the non-educational shows go... shapes spinning, merging, separating, flying around. Trust me, it's cooler than I make it sound.
There were a large number of families in the audience and of course there were several songs that everyone decided it would be a good idea to do a sing-a-long much to my chagrin.
Thankfully, the show only lasted about an hour, then it was time to go and get an early dinner. I picked up this beauty of a burger that was absolutely delicious! My mouth is watering just looking at the photo again!
It never fails, whenever I talk about the planetarium, I always think about this episode of South Park.
I've always been fascinated with the night sky ever since I was a little kind, I remember asking for a telescope pretty much every year for Christmas and never getting one until I was a grown adult. That makes the planetarium extra special for me even if the show has nothing to do with the stars, constellations, or heavenly bodies.
Do you have a planetarium near where you live? Have you ever been? Do they do special shows like the one we visited? Have you ever seen a prettier burger? :)
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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or